The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a connector for optical conductors on a printed circuit board as well as a protection cover and an alignment piece, in particular to be used in this method.
Such a method is described in the earlier international application PCT/EP95/02403 of the same applicant. In this method the printed circuit board is completed after positioning the alignment piece on a first printed circuit board part and applying the optical conductors. Then the parts of the optical conductors projecting out of the printed circuit board and superfluous material at the location of the alignment piece are removed by polishing, wherein the optical contact pads are also made. Removing the projecting parts of the optical conductors by polishing in order to make the optical contact pads is a manufacturing step which has to be made carefully as the conductors can be damaged thereby. Because the complete printed circuit board is manufactured first, before the polishing step is carried out, it is not possible anymore to remove damaged conductor(s) if one or more optical conductors are possibly damaged, so that in case of such a possible damage the complete printed circuit board has become useless.
It is a first object of the invention to provide a method of the above-mentioned type wherein this disadvantage is overcome in an effective manner.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a protection cover to be used in this method.
A further object of the invention is to provide an alignment piece to be used with this protection cover in this method.